My Splendid Concubine is set in 19th century China, as seen through the eyes of Robert Hart, an Irishman posted to Ningpo by the British civil service as an interpreter. The main part of the story covers about a decade, starting in 1854 as he arrives. A brief epilogue narrates his final departure in 1908.
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Hart is a fascinating character, who became completely enamoured with Chinese culture and devoted his life to it. At the start this focused on tackling the immediate human horror of opium addiction, sponsored by European mercantile interests. As he proved his ability and loyalty, and rose in rank within the Chinese bureaucracy, he became able to tackle internal corruption and external threat on a much wider scale. For all this, he was trusted and honoured in quite extraordinary ways by the Imperial dynasty.
Lloyd’s story mixes Hart’s official and personal lives, and in particular the ways in which his love for a girl he took as concubine shaped, and ultimately conflicted with, his advancement. Hart begins the book driven by pure hedonism (constantly at war with his Methodist upbringing), but gradually converts this into a rather exhausting level of altruistic service. By the end of the story, his personal relationships have been pushed firmly to the back, and are driven by the same commitment to duty as his official tasks.
As other reviewers have commented, the early parts of the book are heavily laced with sexual detail. This is, I think, not gratuitous but mirrors Hart’s own preoccupation in his younger days. As he becomes more committed to his work, so his attention largely turns to political and cultural matters. The pursuit of pleasure is still present, but its target has broadened. His sex life dwindles as his political life expands.
Lloyd clearly has great passion for this place and time, as well as for Hart himself. He went to considerable trouble to track down documentary sources outside those which were readily available. Unfortunately, the actual production of the book shows less care than the research behind it. There are a surprising number of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Stylistically the occasional insertion of historical notes or comments on future actions tends to throw you out of the story, and I think these could have been incorporated more smoothly. He talks at some length about aspects of Chinese culture which were strikingly beautiful – in contrast to Hart’s first impression of smelly squalor – but the writing itself retains very little of this elegance. The few extracts from Chinese poems scarcely make up for the general lack of style.
The book has two major sections, which give the impression that they were written separately and then simply combined without continuity editing. Several episodes from Part 1 are carefully explained in Part 2, which might have been needed when released separately but make no sense now the book is a whole. Some Chinese phrases, such as “lose face“, are italicised early on to show they have a technical meaning, but are treated as normal text later. On the other hand, the epilogue, which deserves to be presented as a separate section, runs straight on from the previous chapter – this is confusing when first read. Some parts of dialogue carefully use period-specific terms or direct renderings of Chinese terms, but these are mixed with words like “okay” which jar somewhat.
In short, a four star book for me. Lloyd successfully invites the reader to appreciate this part of Chinese history, and the challenges of Hart’s own life. It is an unusual setting, and deals with a remarkable man. However, the execution of the book distracts from the story in various ways, and I could have wished that the prose style mirrored the content more closely.